The Clothesline

Summary

Charlotte Druitt Cole writes this chapter. It tells us about a clothesline and what she imagines the clothes must be thinking. She uses some very fun examples to explain what she feels the clothes must be thinking. 

Stanza by stanza explanation.

Hand in hand, they dance in a row,
Hither and thither, and to and fro,
Flip! Flap! Flop! and away they go —
Fluttering creatures as white as snow,
Like restive horses, they caper and prance;
Like fairy-tale witches, they wildly dance;
Rounded in front but hollow behind,
They shiver and skip in the merry March wind.

In the first stanza, the poet says that the clothes look like they are dancing hand in hand. Because of the wind, the clothes keep going from one place to another, so they look like they are dancing. The poet has used many more examples to explain her thoughts on the movement of the clothes. 

One I saw dancing excitedly,
Struggling so wildly till she was free,
Then, leaving pegs and clothesline behind her,
She flew like a bird, and no one can find her.

In the second stanza, she says that one day, she saw one piece of cloth dancing so happily and enthusiastically to get free that no one could find it anywhere when it finally got free. It flew away like a bird. 

I saw her gleam, like a sail, in the sun,
Flipping and flapping and flopping for fun.
Nobody knows where she now can be,
Hid in a ditch, or drowned in the sea.

In the third stanza, the poet continues to speak about the cloth she saw flying. She says that it flips and flops for fun and that she saw it gleaming away. She also describes how no one knows where the cloth is and how they will never be able to find it again. 

She was my handkerchief not long ago,
But she’ll never come back to my pocket, I know.

In the end, she says that the cloth hat that flew away was her handkerchief, but it will never come back to her pocket because it has gone away.